GHA problem

[brandon429]

yep its ideal as a growback manager if even needed. You are acting soon enough my prediction is the gha w stay gone quite a bit on first test/go, and then if that's wrong you'll still have a totally gha free system only showing whiskers growth/not a big deal/ can try that gfo in half portion then work up, for growback prevention tuning its ideal.

 

[JoeD_]

I am dosing hydrogen peroxide right now. 1ml per 10g of watter (3% solution). So far so good.

 

[saullman]

Hi Brandon,
. Do you recommend I do a water change. The last one was done a week ago. And if so, how much do you recommend I do? Big or small.

 

[brandon429]

Have you done the rock treatment part/zap algae portion

if so its ok to do a water change. if you haven't done the rock work yet, I would go ahead and run it then do the water change so the tank starts pretty fresh. There isn't a harmful % of water change, matching temp and salinity only is all that's required for your setting, as long as you are using premade water that sat a little while to degas.

if you changed 50% that's a positive, but the risk is always the pouring back in part where things kick up detritus. Its not the actual water that's a risk, animals like clean water exchange they hate detritus storm upwells.
pour back in carefully over one of the rocks as breakup/should be ok. if you notice lots of casting being kicked up, we need to sandbed clean this tank

 

[saullman]

Have you done the rock treatment part/zap algae portion

if so its ok to do a water change. if you haven't done the rock work yet, I would go ahead and run it then do the water change so the tank starts pretty fresh. There isn't a harmful % of water change, matching temp and salinity only is all that's required for your setting, as long as you are using premade water that sat a little while to degas.

if you changed 50% that's a positive, but the risk is always the pouring back in part where things kick up detritus. Its not the actual water that's a risk, animals like clean water exchange they hate detritus storm upwells.
pour back in carefully over one of the rocks as breakup/should be ok. if you notice lots of casting being kicked up, we need to sandbed clean this tank

Ok. So what you are saying is that I should clean the rocks first. Then do the water change another day?

I was thinking to clean rock, then while rock was outside the tank to siphon 1/2 sandbed, and water change at the same time. Or is that too much at one time.

 

[brandon429]

It's risky to deal with the sandbed in partials, sometimes it's ok to but that's the risk. When you want to clean the sandbed all I can do is refer to the sand rinse thread where it's all at once, with 100% new water. Whether that's big work for one person or small work for another doesn't change the biology, partial Sb cleaning and a partial water change never occur in the thread so we have no losses.

If you notice during your rock clean there's not much sandbed waste being caused by lifting the rock, I'd leave sand alone until you are ready to clean it fully. Others recommend, and perform, those partial cleaning and things are fine so it's not a nuclear move to do

We have safe track record because we only do full sand swaps or rinses vs partials. Mainly it's ok to just leave the sand if it doesn't kick up a lot when lifting out rocks. If it does kick up, then hard work should be considered

 

[saullman]

It's risky to deal with the sandbed in partials, sometimes it's ok to but that's the risk. When you want to clean the sandbed all I can do is refer to the sand rinse thread where it's all at once, with 100% new water. Whether that's big work for one person or small work for another doesn't change the biology, partial Sb cleaning and a partial water change never occur in the thread so we have no losses.

If you notice during your rock clean there's not much sandbed waste being caused by lifting the rock, I'd leave sand alone until you are ready to clean it fully. Others recommend, and perform, those partial cleaning and things are fine so it's not a nuclear move to do

We have safe track record because we only do full sand swaps or rinses vs partials. Mainly it's ok to just leave the sand if it doesn't kick up a lot when lifting out rocks. If it does kick up, then hard work should be considered

Ok. So I will leave the sand alone for now. Clean the rock first. Then do a water change after. Should this be done one after the other or break it up into different days?

 

[saullman]

Just took this off the top layer of my sandbed. It came up in clumps.

 

[saullman]

I put some peroxide on a clump of algae today to see what it actually does to algae. I guess I was expecting it to shrivel up and die, however it did not. It's been sitting there for hours now.

 

[brandon429]

Agreed, sometimes they don't bubble either

It's still working, and great pre test idea yes


Give it 48 hrs after treatment to register light color / dieoff

That bubbling is a neat character of peroxide. Put a puddle of 3% in palm of hand, not a bubble. Anyone

But on blood or open wound, bubbles for everyone. It only bubbles when certain classes of bacteria are present, the bubbling isn't an indication of it working or not. I find it amazing that a normal clean hand never has peroxidase positive bacteria on the outside

Off to google to see if peroxidase is a normal blood component as well

 

[rodney]

I put some peroxide on a clump of algae today to see what it actually does to algae. I guess I was expecting it to shrivel up and die, however it did not. It's been sitting there for hours now.

Have you read any thing on carbon dosing? If you have nitrogen and phosphorus in your tank it will help reduce both and help with the GHA with time.

 

[saullman]

Have you read any thing on carbon dosing? If you have nitrogen and phosphorus in your tank it will help reduce both and help with the GHA with time.

Not in detail, but I have come across it a time or two when paging through threads. I believe you can use vodka. Also I think that's what nopox is. A form of carbon dosing.

 

[rodney]

I use vinegar mixed with Kalk. I had GHA bad in my 150 and got it under control with that but it takes time and you get some ciano.

 

[rodney]

Just search carbon dosing on R2R and Thais lots of good info it worked for me you just have to start slowly.

 

[saullman]

Scrubbed my tank head to toe about 3 weeks ago. Scrubbed rock work outside of tank in saltwater. Picked GHA up off of the sandbed. Added a phosphate reducing media pad in the tank and GHA came back with advengence. It seems to be concentrated on the upper half of my rocks and my sand bed. I'm wondering if it has something to do with my light? Things that make you go hmmmm.

 

[brandon429]

We never got the test rock pics to be able to remark on it

Test rock= a rock, not algae, is lifted out and rasped clean with a knife back to no algae.

Since algae regrows from the rock, we test the rock for controls, not the tuft of algae in the test dish.


Peroxide is put on the cleaned spot, the rock area that was scraped. That rock is shown in succession pics before during after treatment, and from that we know how the tank behaves when worked. We wouldn’t do the work without already testing peroxide on the spot and knowing regrowth characters before the big job ideally. Test rock compliance comes before full tank work, take pics of test rocking

Those succession pics show if the rasping was done in detail...they show if growback starts soon etc, they’re missing here

Wanna do the test rock approach real quick? Doesn’t take long even if you choose another control method. It’s ideal to work this method without customization before ruling direct control out. It shows you how if all else fails, you know what at least worked on that one test rock




A clean sandbed= on video you can reach in and grab sand to the very bottom, drop it, no cloud. Right now if you did that it might stress or kill the tank with clouding, that’s a feed source for gha. Scrubbing rocks mashes algae into a paste then spreads it around, only rasping with a knife is safe and effective. You still have a way to get the tank on track we just make less changes to the approach and run it the thorough way

 

[brandon429]

= clean sandbed

 

[saullman]

We never got the test rock pics to be able to remark on it

Test rock= a rock, not algae, is lifted out and rasped clean with a knife back to no algae.

Since algae regrows from the rock, we test the rock for controls, not the tuft of algae in the test dish.


Peroxide is put on the cleaned spot, the rock area that was scraped. That rock is shown in succession pics before during after treatment, and from that we know how the tank behaves when worked. We wouldn’t do the work without already testing peroxide on the spot and knowing regrowth characters before the big job ideally. Test rock compliance comes before full tank work, take pics of test rocking

Those succession pics show if the rasping was done in detail...they show if growback starts soon etc, they’re missing here

Wanna do the test rock approach real quick? Doesn’t take long even if you choose another control method. It’s ideal to work this method without customization before ruling direct control out. It shows you how if all else fails, you know what at least worked on that one test rock




A clean sandbed= on video you can reach in and grab sand to the very bottom, drop it, no cloud. Right now if you did that it might stress or kill the tank with clouding, that’s a feed source for gha. Scrubbing rocks mashes algae into a paste then spreads it around, only rasping with a knife is safe and effective. You still have a way to get the tank on track we just make less changes to the approach and run it the thorough way

Does the peroxide have to be a new bottle?

 

[brandon429]

No it lasts a good while we can try any you have if it’s not super old

I mouthwash with it weekly usually and it cuts biofilm nicely on smooth teeth I can tell if my bottle gets flat by clean feeling after. Mine w last months in medicine cabinet

Hey did that one spot of gha tested still die after application